


as the sky goes dark

by menefreghista



Category: Naruto
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, Prequel, Uzumaki Naruto is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29727324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menefreghista/pseuds/menefreghista
Summary: There are several schools in Konoha. The kids are distributed in big yellow buses and they carry heavy backpacks and cheerful smiles. In some, you learn math and science, art and music, friendship and kindness. In others, you learn the fastest way to kill a man, how to hit your target, and that no matter what, you should never show weakness
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto
Kudos: 7





	as the sky goes dark

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the prequel to a fic i’m writing rn, and because it’s not rly relevant to the plot so i’m posting it.
> 
> This fic will be updated sometime in the next week, maybe even taken down and reposted. I rly just wanted to get something out there.

Naruto is born in the fall, when the leaves are turning red and gold and falling from their branches to the frost-coated ground. He loses his mother and father before having the chance to truly know them, before the winter comes in gusts of frozen wind, or the spring, when the flowers bud and the world returns to living. His parents die as the world dies, and when it comes to life again, they stay cold in their caskets.

When he is old enough to understand, he wishes that people were like seasons, and that his parents could come back. His wishes fall to deaf ears, a whisper on the breeze, distrubuted throughout the world, but never answered.

There are several schools in Konoha. The kids are distributed in big yellow buses and they carry heavy backpacks and cheerful smiles. In some, you learn math and science, art and music, friendship and kindness. In others, you learn the fastest way to kill a man, how to hit your target, and that no matter what, you should never show weakness. Emotion is a weakness, don’t fall in love, we all live lonely lives. You are not a person, you are a Ninja, learn the difference, or die trying.

There are two schools for Ninja, and Naruto goes to the one downtown, where the kids throw paper airplanes except they are cleverly disguised kunai’s. Where they are pitted against each other to fight, but also told that they should work together. When they signed up for this school, when they signed up to become children on the battlefeild, when they signed up for a life of “the mission will always be held over your life.” When their parents signed the paper that would lead them down unhappy roads that always met an early end.

Naruto does not see this, because he is five years old, and his dream is to become Hokage. He throws away the sliver of a chance at a normal life, or maybe that’s how some people see it. In reality, Naruto’s fate has been sealed since the day he came into this world.

At Konoha’s best Ninja academy, Naruto learns many things and he doesn’t learn how to make friends. He tries again and again without success. He likes to think that people didn’t try to become friends wth him because they already knew each other before, and it is weird to add a new friend to the group. He knows that isn’t it; they had to do introductions on the first day, and most of them seemed genuinely surprised that Kiba had a dog. He brought Akamaru with him everywhere though, and if they already knew each other they for sure should have known that.

Technically, his first friend is Shikamaru, a boy with hair that kind of reminds him of a pineapple. He doesn’t say it out loud, because Shikamaru seems nice and he doesn’t want to lose his friend.

A baggie with a shabbily put together sandwich is one of the better lunches that Naruto brings. Shikamaru’s mom lets him have two yoghurt cups, and sometimes Shikamaru will share with Naruto, because he notices that the other boy’s mom is probably too busy to make him a home-packed lunch. Shikamaru doesn’t know that he is an orphan, and Naruto doesn’t bother telling him.

With Shikamaru comes Chouji, they say that this is because they are part of Ino-Shika-Cho, whatever that is.

“Shika,” He comments, pointing at Shikamaru “and Cho.” Chouji grins with a mouth full of food

“What about Ino?” Naruto asks, and Shikamaru glares over the playground at a blonde girl.

“She’s a girl.” Shikamaru rolls his eyes like its obvious, but Naruto is only even more confused.

Chouji decides then to helpfully explain. “Girls have cooties.”

Naruto doesn’t ask any more than that, because he doesn’t want to seem stupid. He can only think that whatever cooties are, they must be pretty bad.

Eventually, Naruto comes to know his classmates. He has a paper spread on his desk at home, and he writes all of their names under two columns. People who he could talk to, and people who he couldn’t talk to; the names and reasons why in the second column made his hand shake around the pencil.

It is a pitiful list, and Naruto crumples it up and shoves it in a box in his closet, the one filled to the brim with homework assignments he either didn’t do or failed miserably, which was pretty much all of them. He thinks about the nearly five people who have made it to the good side of the list, and sighs. His dream of being the Hokage, his dream of being acknowledged, still has as much of a chance of happening as the dead had the chance of being revived.

He returns to the schoolyard the next day after that, sitting through boring classes every day. Days turn to weeks, turn to months, turn to years, and Naruto graduates -barely.

He is assigned to the regular team of three. On his team, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke. 

Sakura is civilian born, and the best kunoichi in their year. She is an excellent ninja in intelligence, but her skills when it comes to the year world are less than ideal. She is easy to anger, and always seems to be fawning over Naruto’s other teammate

Sasuke is from the not-so long gone Uchiha Clan, and it shows. He’s not only academically perfect, but his intellect in battle is hard to rival. Not to mention his clan’s kekkei genkai which puts him at a level Naruto could only dream to reach.

Their teacher is a tired looking man named Kakashi, who falls for Naruto’s simplest pranks and wipes the floor with him later. He is confusing, and reminds Naruto eerily of Shikamaru. A genius who never cares enough to show it. Naruto envies prodigies like that, he really does.

They are given a test, another one just so they can become Genin. They fail, then they pass, and Naruto can’t help but think that if this is the path to becoming a Hokage, he’s not really sure if he wants to be one. But Naruto is never one for giving up, so he keeps at it.

His days as a Genin are spent simply, going on easy missions, because somebody had to maintain Konoha’s fences, and that somebody happened to be the three members of Team 7. 

It’s just unfortunate that paint peels, and Naruto comes out of each mission with ten more splinters in his finger than the amount he started with. Over the long months of painting that ends up being quite a lot of splinters.

Naruto argues with Sakura a lot, despite his massive crush on her. Sometimes it is simple things, like if cats are good or bad, or who’s better at chakra control. Other times, they are insulting and cruel, using the lowest insults to prove a point. It’s normally about then that Sasuke shows up and offers a training session, just the three of them, no stupid adults. The argument is forgotten after that.

This is the journey to how Team 7 becomes friends, where mean words spat at each others faces become fond, still insults, but more out of routine than anything.

A family built on trauma, and misunderstandings, and death. A team Naruto wouldn’t trade the world for. It’d be more likely he’d trade his own soul. 

While Shikamaru was his first friend, and Gaara was his kindest, and Hinata was the one he married, Naruto considered Sakura and Sasuke above all of them. His best friends.

If Naruto was the Sun, and Sasuke was his parallel, the Moon, then Sakura was the Stars, binding them together, even when they were worlds apart.

**Author's Note:**

> This was more of a character study than a fic, but that’s just who i am lmao, the sequel should be posted by the end of march, in the same series this one is marked in. luckily for me spring break is coming up so i’ll be able to write a full length fic, which i haven’t had the time to do since last summer. thanks for reading!  
> -haru


End file.
